I don’t think it’s any secret that I’m a fan of Bruce Lee. After all, I’ve reviewed all his major films for this website, came up with a short bio for his LoveHKFilm.com People Page, wrote a little article about some film and TV projects of his that never came to pass, and even penned a long-winded blog post about his transnational appeal.

But if my love for man known as “The Little Dragon” has fairly been obvious, I doubt many LoveHKFilm.com readers are aware of another “idol” of mine — Philip Marlowe.  Not only is Raymond Chandler’s hardboiled private eye my favorite character in literature, but Chandler’s penultimate novel in the Marlowe series, The Long Goodbye, is perhaps my favorite novel ever written. First appearing in Chandler’s The Big Sleep, Philip Marlowe has gone on to be played on both the big and small screens by actors like Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum, Elliott Gould, Dick Powell, Powers Boothe, and James Caan, among others. Most, but not all, of these films and TV shows have made it to DVD, albeit with one glaring exception — a 1969 adaptation of the novel, The Little Sister, entitled Marlowe.

One of my favorite actors, Oklahoma native James Garner — star of TV’s Maverick, The Rockford Files, and (for you young ‘uns) The Notebook — plays Marlowe, so I’ve been dying to see the film. And as it so happens, while scanning an Asian toyshop (of all the places in the world) on Clement St, I was able to pick up a copy and watch the film for the very first time.

Now, you may be asking yourself, “What in the hell does all this have to do with Bruce Lee and/or Hong Kong cinema?” Well, I’ll tell ya.  Marlowe marks Bruce Lee’s American acting debut in a full-length feature film. Scripted by one of Lee’s students, Sterling Silliphant, Marlowe features Lee in a bit part, playing a menacing thug named Winslow Wong (who, by the way, doesn’t appear in the Chandler book at all).

When Marlowe Met Winslow

To be honest, Marlowe is no great shakes — sure, Garner is likable, and Rita Moreno is attractive as hell (her striptease that concludes the film is surprisingly risque in a mainstream flick of its day), so it’s a shame that they didn’t get much screen time together — but the film itself is fairly dull and unnecessarily convoluted. I mean, Marlowe himself doesn’t seem to know what the hell’s going on even when he “solves” the case. That’s a definite no-no. However, I think both Chandler and Bruce Lee fans can agree that the scenes with Lee and Garner crackle with an energy that’s missing throughout much of the film. If you’ve seen Bruce Lee: A Warrior’s Journey, you might be familiar with this sequence:

Pretty amusing, eh? Lee appears again in the film, but I won’t link to a clip of his final appearance, so as not to spoil the experience if you’re so inclined to catch Marlowe on TV, VHS, or “On Demand” someday. Lee fans might feel a little insulted by what happens, but I found the outcome of the fight to be pretty amusing, considering how invincible Lee’s characters tended to be in his own martial arts films. The way things go down, you might be tempted to read this as Lee making fun of his image. Too bad he didn’t have an “image” to poke fun at — The Big Boss, Fist of Fury, Way of the Dragon, and Enter the Dragon hadn’t happened yet!

Fan Bing-Bing and Jackie Chan in Derek Yee’s Shinjuku Incident

Derek Yee’s dark 2009 drama Shinjuku Incident is getting a limited stateside release courtesy of the folks at Barking Cow Distribution.  For now, the film is showing in California, Hawai’i, New Jersey, New York, and Washington. Click here for specific theater listings. I’ve actually already seen the film, albeit on a Singapore Airlines flight, but if I get a chance, I might catch a screening at the AMC Van Ness 14 here in San Francisco. The airline version seemed to be slightly edited for violence, although I don’t think seeing the reinstated footage would do much of a difference in terms of altering my opinion of the film.

In rereading Kozo’s original review, I have to admit that I concur with much of what he has to say. Shinjuku Incident does try to be, as he writes, “an immigrant drama and a gangland thriller.” For what it’s worth, I really liked the immigrant story much more than I did the “emerging criminal empire” angle that emerges halfway through. Part of the reason for the film’s difficulty in transitioning well between the two genres is the casting of Jackie Chan. To be fair, he does a fine job in the role, but — through not fault of his own — he simply can’t transcend his iconic onscreen persona. Jackie Chan’s character, Steelhead, does some very bad things in this movie, but it’s easy to forgive him because of that familiar, affable “I don’t want any trouble” personality he’s cultivated in a myriad of films in the last two decades. We shouldn’t be giving his character a pass during these moments, but strangely, even the worst crimes all feel very justified.

On one hand, you can’t help but wonder, as Kozo does, what the film would’ve been like with a different actor in the lead role, especially someone with less “hero” movie baggage attached to him. But on the other hand, you could also argue that the stunt/against-type casting of Jackie Chan creates a less predictable and more intriguing execution of what is really a very familiar storyline. In that respect, recasting the role might actually make for a more conventional film rather than a better one.

And so, despite whatever quibbles I may have with Shinjuku Incident, I’d recommend checking the film out. Derek Yee is a brilliant filmmaker, and it’s always a welcome sight to see Jackie Chan in an honest-to-goodness Hong Kong film. And believe it or not, Daniel Wu actually steals the show: his initial storyline will break your heart (I actually would’ve preferred an alternate movie in which he struggles as a happy-go-lucky street vendor). The early climax of his “immigrant dream” subplot is pretty sad as…IT ALL GOES TO HELL! Then things get awesome, as Wu’s character morphs into into the Hong Kong equivalent of Kakihara from Ichi the Killer and starts chewing up the scenery left and right. Somewhere along the way, the film then becomes a Greek/Shakespearean tragedy of epic proportions. Roll credits. Let’s just say this ain’t your average night at the movies — HK, US, or otherwise.

Having said that, if the film is playing in your area, feel free to take a break from your tenth viewing of Avatar or abort your first attempt at Dear John, and check out Jackie Chan’s big screen dramatic turn instead. At least you’ll have something interesting to talk about when the movie’s over.

 

 

When I visited Singapore in the summer of 2009, I was delighted to have the opportunity to watch English-subtitled Hong Kong movies in theaters. One of those films that I went to see during my trip abroad was Turning Point, a 2009 undercover cop flick helmed by the prolific and underrated director, Herman Yau. Mostly out of the loop when it comes to the day-to-day pop culture of Hong Kong, I was surprised as heck that Young and Dangerous veteran Michael Tse was featured prominently on the poster alongside Anthony Wong and Francis Ng. More surprising to me was that not only was it a starring role for Tse, but that Turning Point was created expressly for him — that is, his character was meant to be the film’s primary draw. How the heck did this happen?

Well, as many of you might know, Turning Point is a prequel/spin-off of a popular TVB show called E.U. (”Emergency Unit”). Michael Tse played a supporting role as Laughing Gor, a triad heavy who ended up stealing the show out from under the leads and becoming the most popular character in the process.

Upon learning this, I really wanted to see the original show, and while television and DVD stores in Singapore proved fruitless, I hit the jackpot in Genting, Malaysia, as one of the stores (in a casino, no less) had an official DVD set of the entire series. Running thirty episodes, I was a little skeptical that I would be able to muster the strength to start, let alone finish watching the series. After all, my previous commitments to certain Korean dramas have always been a chore even if I actually liked the shows in question. To be honest, shortened series like Dexter and Curb Your Enthusiasm are more my speed.

Well, I had some free time, and on a whim, I popped in the first disc (five episodes) and have been watching them on and off for the last few days. I don’t know when I’ll complete my viewing, but I’m definitely gearing up to write a full review once I finish the series. But until that time, I thought I might share some initial thoughts about the program that may eventually form the basis for a more formal critique of the show. Some of you may have seen Turning Point, but not E.U., so maybe I can help fill in some of the gaps.

Read the rest of this entry »

A long time ago in a country far, 
far away…

It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire — WHOOPS! Wrong epic saga.

If you’re wondering how I could confuse The Founding of a Republic – a star-studded Mainland Chinese film made to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China — with one of George Lucas’s blockbuster space operas, let me explain (and reveal my once fervent Star Wars fanaticism in the process): The Fall of the Republic was one of many rumored titles for the third film of the Prequel Trilogy, as we all presumed the Republic made way for the Empire in the Original Trilogy (in fact, the Republic is the Empire — just under new management).

Anyway, to get back on point — I finally caught The Founding of a Republic over the winter break, and boy was I disappointed! What a snooze! I have to admit that the movie is often pretty to look at despite the required presence of numerous unattractive and/or middle-aged political figures. And I suppose it’s sort of amusing when each of the big-time Chinese celebs (Jet Li, Andy Lau, Zhang Ziyi, Donnie Yen, Leon Lai, etc) show up for their thirty-second cameos, but let’s be real about this — the movie could use a LOT of work.

Now to that comment, you might be saying to yourself, “Hey, THIS IS HISTORY, MAN! You can’t mess with history! It’s not like you can just spice things up by having Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-Shek have a lightsaber duel on top of the Great Wall of China!”

Well, you know what I say to that? Why the heck not? I don’t think the presence of lightsaber-wielding Jedi masters would have hurt this movie one bit.

 

Jet Li approves of lightsaber duels with historical figures

Okay, I’m kidding. But really, even though the stakes may be high for the real-life characters depicted in the film, The Founding of a Republic is so dramatically inert, it’s almost unbelievable. Aside from a briefly tense moment at a military checkpoint, the film fails to conjure up any palpable feeling of tension or drama. Sure, it’s all a foregone conclusion, but so was the fate of the Titanic.

I kind of feel bad for directors Huang Jianxin and Han Sanping, and here’s why: horror auteur John Carpenter has said on more than one occasion that the most difficult scenes to shoot are ones in which two people are simply talking with one another. What’s difficult about it, he says, is to keep it interesting for the audience. The Founding Republic is almost entirely composed of scenes in which people, often just two, talk about what’s going on in China and how they feel about it. In a sense, this is a movie composed entirely of set-up and exposition, leading to the “climactic” scene that’s featured in the screengrab of Mao I’ve included at the beginning of this article.

I won’t even bother to analyze the politics of this movie. I don’t think I’m qualified anyway. And Kevin already did a really thorough job of pointing out the film’s limitations so I won’t cover the same ground again. All I can say is that The Founding of a Republic didn’t work for me — not as a history lesson and not as a cameo-fest (and I missed Jackie Chan somehow!).

But y’know, I am curious…how did the rest of you like it? And if you did truly like it — what appealed to you?

 

 Tell “Army Andy” EVERYTHING!

1. In the Mood for Love (2000)

Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai are In the Mood for Love

Did you honestly think I would pick My Wife is 18? Well, I didn’t. If it’s any consolation, Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love does deal with a seemingly inappropriate relationship of its own — a budding romance between a man and a woman who just so happen to be married to other people. But then again, their respective spouses are having affairs — with each other, no less – so the line between what’s right and what’s wrong gets more than a little hazy as the story unfolds. The two wounded lovers (played by Tony Leung Chiu-Wai and Maggie Cheung) end up forming a peculiar sort of friendship, borne out of a mutual pain and a fervent desire to both understand and hopefully come to grips with their spouses’ cruel betrayal. The results of their experiment are nothing less than movie magic. In the Mood for Love is a rare movie romance where entire pages of dialogue can be conveyed in a single look and the “real action” may just reside somewhere between the lines (or edits, as it were).

Although there’s no need to elaborate, I saw In the Mood for Love – like many of Wong Kar-Wai’s other films — at a particular crossroads in my own life. What I can say is that my undergraduate university advertised a free screening, and when I saw the name Wong Kar-Wai, I immediately recognized him from that wonderful film of his, Chungking Express. If the wording of that sentence sounds a little strange coming from a Hong Kong film enthusiast, let me remind you: like my unfamiliarity with both Category-III skin flicks and Stephen Chow comedies, I was also practically Wong Kar-Wai illiterate at that time. I think some of those same books that I read about Hong Kong cinema suggested his films were pretentious, and taking them at their word, I pretty much avoided his work — that is, until Chungking Express showed up on the shelf of the foreign film section of my local Hastings (it’s a video/books/music store).

In any event, I went to the theatre by myself, not knowing a single thing about the plot or what to expect. Nowadays, with the advent of internet, it has become very easy to spoil a movie — either we have movies spoiled for us or we actively seek out spoilers due to unbridled enthusiasm and curiosity for a certain filmmaker’s work. Well, going in completely ignorant of what In the Mood for Love would entail turned out to be a pretty good move.

When I walked out of the small theatre after the lights came up, I have to admit that I didn’t know what to think. The film held my attention throughout, as the characters, the music, the rhythm, and the idiosyncratic editing style just washed over me.  I couldn’t really articulate anything. All I really knew was that I liked it. I eventually bought the Criterion Collection DVD (on sale for $20! Score!) as soon as I saw it in stores, and through multiple viewings I came to understand why it had affected me so. Heck, I even liked the deleted scenes!

If you couldn’t already tell, this is quite possibly my favorite Wong Kar-Wai movie EVER and probably the best film the critically-acclaimed auteur will ever make, although 2046 came close. I still hold out hope that he can again craft something as wonderful as In the Mood for Love, a beautiful film that improves with every subsequent viewing. Credit must also go to William Cheung Suk-Ping, Christopher Doyle, Lee Ping-Ban for the film’s look, as well as Tony Leung Chiu-Wai and Maggie Cheung for delivering career-defining performances that are sure to be remembered for a very long time. I mean, after all, Tony Leung has become so associated with Wong Kar-Wai, that My Blueberry Nights suffered considerably in his absence.  Without “Little Tony,” the film was WKW-lite. Like Kurosawa without Mifune, it just ain’t the same. On a similar note, it’s a damn shame Maggie Cheung retired from acting. She’s a rare talent among actresses in Hong Kong cinema and is sorely missed.

As I hope my comments show, I firmly believe that In the Mood for Love is a shining example of the very best that Hong Kong cinema has to offer. Without reservation, I’d recommend it to anyone as the top Hong Kong film of the decade. Really, it doesn’t get any better than this.

*     *     *

Here’s a recap of the top 25, but now expanded to a full fifty top picks:

1. In the Mood for Love (2000)
2. Shaolin Soccer (2001)
3. Needing You… (2000)
4. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
5. Red Cliff (2008/2009)
6. 2046 (2004)
7. Kung Fu Hustle (2004)
8. The Heavenly Kings (2007)
9. Hero (2002)
10. Infernal Affairs (2002)
11. Time and Tide (2000)
12. July Rhapsody (2001)
13. Chinese Odyssey 2002 (2002)
14. Infernal Affairs II (2003)
15. Invisible Target (2007)
16. One Nite in Mongkok (2004)
17. Lost in Time (2003)
18. SPL (2005)
19. Election (2005)
20. Election 2 (2006)
21. My Mother is a Belly Dancer (2006)
22. Love on a Diet (2001)
23. The Eye (2002)
24. Connected (2008)
25. CJ7 (2008)
26. Fearless (2006)
27. Just One Look (2002)
28. Colour of the Truth (2003)
29. House of Flying Daggers (2004)
30. Running on Karma (2003)
31. Dumplings…Three Extremes (2004)
32. My Name is Fame (2006)
33. My Wife is 18 (2002)
34. Fulltime Killer (2001)
35. Visible Secret 2 (2002)
36. Exiled (2006)
37. The Beast Stalker (2008)
38. The Protege (2007)
39. Throwdown (2004)
40. Run Papa Run (2008)
41. Curse of the Golden Flower (2006)
42. Infernal Affairs III (2004)
43. Breaking News (2004)
44. My Left Eye Sees Ghosts (2002)
45. Warlords (2007)
46. Sausalito (2000)
47. Initial D (2005)
48. Shinjuku Incident (2008)
49. Secret (2007)
50. The Duel (2000)

While I’m at it, I thought I’d throw out some additional “Honorable Mentions” (listed below in alphabetical order). I’m not ashamed to say I dug all these films, but for one reason or another, I just couldn’t bring myself to put ‘em in the top fifty. For some titles, the reasons behind that hesitation might be obvious; for others, not so much. For instance, I didn’t know what to do with Three — “Going Home” and Eros — “The Hand” since they’re both short films, and even though I liked it better than some of the films in the top 25, Ashes of Time Redux is not really a new movie, but more of a tune-up of a 90s model picture, complete with a new paint job.

If your favorite movie isn’t listed here or anywhere else on my list, chances are that a) the movie completely slipped my mind or b)  I simply haven’t had the opportunity to see it yet. My sincerest apologies. This whole process reminds me a lot of an epigram that concludes one of the film’s on this list:

He remembers those vanished years. As though looking through a dusty window pane, the past is something he could see, but not touch. And everything he sees is blurred and indistinct.

Honorable Mentions:

Ashes of Time Redux (2008), Bullets of Love (2000), The Detective (2007), Divergence (2005), Dragon Tiger Gate (2006), Dry Wood, Fierce Fire (2002), Eros — “The Hand” (2004), The Eye 2 (2004), Eye in the Sky  (2007), Fat Choi Spirit (2002), Fighting for Love (2001), The Floating Landscape (2003), Good Times, Bed Times (2003), Hooked on You (2007), I’ll Call You (2006), Ip Man (2008), Leave Me Alone (2004), The Mad Detective (2007), New Police Story (2004), Perhaps Love (2005), Re-Cycle (2005), Rule #1 (2008), Running Out of Time 2 (2001), So Close (2002), Sound of Colors (2003), Summer Holiday (2000), Three — “Going Home” (2002), Tokyo Raiders (2000), Turn Left, Turn Right (2003), Turning Point (2009), Wo Hu (2006)

*Whew*

Well, that’s it. I hope you enjoyed this stroll down memory lane. Let me know what you think! It’s been a fun decade. Let’s all hope for a wonderful new year of Hong Kong cinema and a helluva decade to come! HK filmmakers, don’t let us down!

Prediction: Wong Kar-Wai will direct one of these two in the next decade. Or not. 

Compiling a top ten list of the decade’s best movies is tough work. There are a ton of great Hong Kong films out there, and some just couldn’t make the cut on so short a list. To compensate for any perceived oversights, I’ve decided to list choices #11-#25. I’m certain that some of my picks might be a little unorthodox or downright surprising, but I’m just going to have to follow my gut here, folks — critical or reader consensus against me be damned.

BEST OF THE REST

11. Time and Tide (2000) — I unabashedly love this movie, and it came very close to making the top ten. Whatever hesitancy I had in embracing Nicholas Tse as a leading man disappeared completely thanks to this movie, as his little brother/big brother chemistry with rugged rock n’ roller Wu Bai (who provides a killer soundtrack) is just part of what makes this movie so good. The other part is the action — in particular, that breathless, suspense-filled sequence that makes up a good chunk of the film’s second half. I’m hard pressed to forget that pulse-pounding tenement assault or the decidedly unconventional baby delivery sequence that caps the film. Time and Tide is an action fan’s dream, and, the last great Tsui Hark movie (so far) – and yeah, I saw Seven Swords.

12. July Rhapsody (2001) – I’m not really sure what to say about this heartbreaking Ann Hui film other than that I found it considerably moving. July Rhapsody seems like a straightforward tale of a high school literature teacher (Jacky Cheung) on the verge of a mid-life crisis. After all, one of his students (a fetching Karena Lam) has an obvious crush on him, and it probably doesn’t help the situation that he seems to have some unspoken problem with his wife (the great Anita Mui). But July Rhapsody might not be quite the movie you were expecting, as there are quite a few secrets to be uncovered as the film unfolds. Cheung, Mui, and Lam deliver pitch-perfect performances in this subtle, emotionally gripping tale. 

13. Chinese Odyssey 2002 (2002, duh) — Without a doubt, this is one of the best comedies of the “aughts.” This hilarious little film feels an awful lot like Jeff Lau’s take on what a Wong Kar-Wai-directed mo lei tau comedy would look, feel, and sound like. There are a lot of laughs to be had in Chinese Odyssey 2002 thanks to winning performances from Tony Leung Chiu-Wai and Faye Wong (especially during that goofy Kingdom and the Beauty song parody). The fact that this movie is actually able to reroute the comedy into dramatic territory late in the film is an achievement in itself.  Oh, and Zhao Wei is also pretty damn adorable here, too.

14. Infernal Affairs 2 (2003) — A lot of people seem to think this prequel is superior to the original. And on certain days, I share their opinion — just not today. What I found most interesting about this film was neither the backstory between Sam (Eric Tsang) and SP Wong (Anthony Wong) nor the origin of Yan (Shawn Yu) and Ming (Edison Chen), but Francis Ng’s characteristically magnetic performance as a brand new character — Yan’s older brother, Hau.

15. Invisible Target (2007) — What’s this movie doing here, you say? You were expecting maybe SPL? Well, I’m unashamed to admit that watching Invisible Target was (at that moment) probably the most consistently fun experience I’ve had with a Hong Kong movie in years. Seriously. Benny Chan has made an occasional misstep or two, but this is a prime example of what he does best — fun, energetic action with amusing characters. Invisible Target also made me not only reconsider my opinion of Jaycee Chan, but actually like him, which is a feat I thought was a virtual impossibility after the travesty that was his performance in Twins Effect II (see below).

16. One Nite in Mongkok (2004) – Daniel Wu and Cecillia Cheung are great in this amazing crime thriller from director Derek Yee. It starts out like a simple “on the run” story and spirals into something far richer and involving. Thanks to One Nite in Mongkok, I’ve made a concerted effort to catch every film Yee has made since.

17. Lost in Time (2003) — Hey, it’s another Derek Yee film! Lost in Time proves that Wong Kar-Wai doesn’t have a strangehold on stories of lost love and hidden pain. Lau Ching-Wan contributes another great acting turn in this heartfelt, emotionally honest film, but the real marvel is Cecilia Cheung. Her HKFA award-winning performance here is one of her very best. 

God, I wish she’d never met Edison Chen.

18. SPL (2005) — Okay, Donnie fans, I’ll give you one. Donnie Yen squaring off with Sammo Hung may mark the climax, but it’s Donnie’s short fight with Wu Jing that everybody loves. And you know what? Me, too.

19 & 20. Election 1 & 2 (2005/2006) – Sorry, Johnnie To acolytes. I know Needing You probably wasn’t the film you would have picked from the famous director’s filmography to crack the top ten, but as they say, “them’s the breaks, kid.” Election is perhaps best known for its crazy downer of an ending, which forever robbed the term “Gone Fishin’” of its pastoral innocence. Despite how I’ve ordered them for convenience (I actually sort of see them as one film), I think I prefer Election 2 as it is a more successfully gripping, dark-hearted take on classic Greek tragedy, albeit one modified for contemporary Hong Kong/China relations. The Man with the Tan is at his best here.

21. My Mother is a Belly Dancer (2006) – This tale of personal liberation through belly-dancing for a group of middle-aged housewives is fun, affecting, and a nice change of pace from youth-skewed romantic comedies or the more male-centered genre pictures coming out of Hong Kong. It’s not perfect — there’s a somewhat unnecessary Andy Lau cameo (his Focus Films backed this project) and My Mother is a Belly Dancer doesn’t quite stick the landing — but I couldn’t help but be charmed by its engaging portrait of a rarely-catered-to demographic.

22. Love on a Diet (2001) — This funny follow-up to Needing You from director Johnnie To works largely due to the presence of Andy Lau rather than his lovely co-star, Sammi Cheng. While Andy Lau preserves his overweight character’s dignity by playing him as a real person, Sammi Cheng’s take on obesity verges on gross parody, as she seems to think that putting on weight lowers a person’s IQ and stunts your social skills exponentially. Bad acting, Sammi! Bad! Still, Andy gives it his all, and somewhere between his chemistry with Sammi and To’s directing skills, an engaging romantic comedy emerges.

23. The Eye (2002) – It’s the scariest Hong Kong film of the decade – well, an intentionally scary one, anyway. Angelica Lee is great, and the directing duo of the Pang brothers ain’t bad either.

24. Connected (2008) – Okay, I know I’m gonna take some flack for listing this so high, but what can I say? – Benny Chan got me again. I mean, how can you not get involved in the thrill-a-minute adventures of a sweaty, constantly apoplectic Louis Koo? The crackerjack, if inane plot makes this a fun, fun ride. I also love how the producers thought that billing it as a Chinese remake of a so-so American film was actually an important selling point.

25. CJ7 (2008) –  I actually liked it. And why not? I know people were expecting Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle-type filmic trancendence, but isn’t that setting the bar a little too high — even for Stephen Chow?  At its core, CJ7 is a an amusing children’s movie that works quite well, containing some fun parodic moments regarding Chow’s recent filmic output to amuse the older crowd. And it sure beats the hell out of The Magic Gourd.

*  *  *

Okay, that’s it for now in regard to the “top picks.” When I list my #1 choice, I’ll do a complete tally of 1-25, PLUS choices #26-50. But before I sign off, here’s a very different kind of list…

BEST OF THE WORST

Y’know, it’s no fun crapping on bad movies that never even had a chance. So, in compiling this list, I tried to stay away from easy targets — movies with low budgets and/or no name actors or directors. It’d be like shooting fish in a barrel. Movies with big budgets and big stars that turned out to be big disasters? Those are fair game. But to clarify, this is not a list of the “bottom ten” — while some of these movies I hate with a passion, there are a few I simply hate to love (or like, as it were).

1. Gen-Y Cops (2000)

Upon watching this sequel to Gen-X Cops, I wondered, “Where’s Nicholas Tse?” It’s a question that I’m guessing Sam Lee and Stephen Fung were asking themselves, too, especially if they were privy to any of the dailies while filming this horrible, horrible film. In Tse’s place, we have an annoying poseur named Edison Chen whose idiotically phony ”gangsta” slang is actually topped in sheer atrociousness by co-star Richard Sun’s. That cute Grace Yip from the original is replaced by Christy Chung and Maggie Q. Based on the latter two’s good looks, you might be inclined think it’s not big loss. But then when you saw them act, you would think someting quite different, I imagine.

Simply put, Gen-Y Cops is the absolute nadir of Hong Kong action filmmaking. It was only after Benny Chan made Invisible Target seven years later that I finally found it in my heart to forgive him for this cringe-inducing mess. Despite being relegated to minor supporting roles, Sam Lee and Stephen Fung look like they’re having a blast, and Paul Rudd makes an odd appearance, but on the whole, this is a terrible film. It also might be a sign of the apocalypse as it was Edison Chen’s cinematic debut.

2. For Bad Boys Only (2000)

How cool are titular bad boys King Chan (Ekin Cheng) and Jack (Louis Koo)? They’re so damn cool they wear designer suits without shirts underneath to highlight their tanned, trimmed, but not really toned bodies. And hey, you know those samurai duels where two fighters lunge at each other, but are both left standing with their backs to one another until one falls and the other is left standing? Well, that happens in For Bad Boys Only — except the geniuses behind this film take it to THE EXTREME. Louis Koo is driving a car and the bad guy is riding a motorcycle, and they have guns! Badass, right?

In any event, LoveHKFilm.com mascot Ekin Cheng is uncharacteristically annoying for the first ten minutes of the film, until his lecherous character hits the motherload when he encounters the exotic Shu Qi. She plays — wait for it –  a clone of a former Olympic Track Star (Shu Qi in a dual, actually triple role). Since the clone is kinda dumb and eager to learn about human relations, Ekin’s character is all-too pleased to be her teacher. Yeah, it’s gonna go there. Is this every lonely heterosexual man’s fantasy or an example of gross misogyny? I think it’s both.

But wait, there’s more…

Can I tell you a secret? I kinda enjoyed this movie. Maybe it was Kristy Yeung. Maybe it was Shu Qi. I really don’t know. Never mind the idiotic cloning plot or strung together action sequences. Guess that makes me a bad boy…with occasionally bad taste.

3. Twins Effect II (2004)

After seeing this movie, I wanted Jaycee Chan banned from acting for life. Mumble-mouthed, lifeless, and possessing all the charisma of a pet rock, the guy was practically comatose as an actor. Luckily, he did some penance with a few dramatic roles, eventually hooking up with Benny Chan,  himself still needing to apologize for Gen-Y Cops since none of the six films he made after that piece of crap could totally wipe it from our collective memory. The two of them won me over by making – you guessed it – Invisible Target, which is essentially Gen-Z Cops, but much, much better than either of the previous two films.

4. Flash Point (2007)

This movie makes Dragon Tiger Gate look like the Citizen Kane of martial arts movies by comparison. Not even the always likeable Louis Koo can save this movie. The premise of this film is basically Donnie Yen preening and swaggering around for the majority of Flash Point’s running time and then proceeding to kick Colin Chou’s ass for the entirety of the finale. Clearly, Donnie Yen and Wilson Yip should have watched ANY Indiana Jones or Rocky movie (even Rocky V, for crying out loud!) and tried to learn a thing or two about the inherent joy of watching an underdog hero prevail over a more skilled opponent. Hell, even Bruce Lee’s adversaries put up more of a fight than Colin Chou!

5. Lust, Caution (2007)

Okay, so it’s not a terrible movie. I included it here because it’s such a prominent film, and it failed to make my top 50 (which I’ll reveal with my #1 choice tomorrow). With that in mind, I felt I had to include it here as a way to explain its omission. Lust, Caution is well-made, boasts great production values, and contains two daring performances — but I’m hard-pressed to see how it adds up to a cohesive whole. I think it’s Ang Lee’s worst movie since Ride with the Devil, although admittedly, I seem to be in the minority. One moment in the film that I cannot deny the power of is the one where Tang Wei sings a Zhou Xuan song to a visibly moved Tony Leung. It moved me, too. And for that reason alone, I might give this film another chance one day in the future.

Other notable dishonorable mentions: #6) Love Undercover 2 (aka: Miriam Cashes a Paycheck), #7) Shopaholics (a thoroughly annoying film with the stars of Lost in Time), #8) Legend of Zu (WTF happened in this movie?), #9) Ming Ming (the annoying ADD editing made me I want to find the director and shake her. Hard), #10) Jiang Hu (this movie had “epic” written all over it — Jacky Cheung and Andy Lau gangstering it up! — and then it turned out to be a complete and utter turkey).

Any list of bad Hong Kong movies for the decade should probably include stuff like Where is Mama’s Boy? (Two words. William. Hung. One more: Ugh), but since I had the good sense to avoid it, I did not list it here. There are certainly worse movies than the ones I listed above, but since I’m under no obligation to watch EVERY Hong Kong film ever made, I’ve remained blissfully ignorant of the worst that Hong Kong has to offer.

Well, I guess that’s it for today. Although…I kinda I feel like I forgot to list a really important movie. What could it be? Oh well, never mind. Check back soon for my number one film of the decade. Here’s a clue:

“I know Calvin’s #1 choice!”

4. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

Zhang Ziyi steals many a man’s heart in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

I saw this movie twice in theaters. The first time was in Stillwater, Oklahoma, home of my alma mater, Oklahoma State University. The second time was about a month later in a six-movie cineplex in Duncan, Oklahoma. Chew on that for a little while. Sure, Stillwater is a college town (with no arthouse theatre, mind you), but Duncan is just your average American town with an Asian population of 0.04% (and no telling how many residents of Chinese descent). So, showing a movie in Mandarin with English subtitles is, y’know, kind of a big deal. That’s how big of a game-changer Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was.

While my crush on Zhang Ziyi fizzled years ago, my esteem for Ang Lee’s Academy Award-winning film has not. Now I’m well-aware that some people don’t like the movie for all kinds of reasons ranging from legitimate gripes like Chow Yun-Fat’s Mandarin being wobbly or even strangely racist ones like ”real Chinese people don’t like it, so it must suck” (I’ve heard this more than once). But I think that critical blowback is merely a product of people coming too late to the party and feeling like they were burned out by the hype machine. It happens with all kinds of great movies, so why would Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon be any exception?

Instead of trying to recapture and recapitulate my thoughts on this wonderful film, I’ll allow some guy named Sanjuro to do my work for me:

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is more than just a movie; it’s a phenomenon. Along with The Matrix, its title will forever be used as a comparative term for film blurbs around the world (”It’s a cross between.”). Based on the book by Wang Du-Lu, the film is an epic tale of two couples coming to grips with the realities of living in the martial world. Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh are great, while Zhang Ziyi turns in a star-making performance. […] Beautiful and compelling to the very last, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is nothing less than a cinematic masterpiece.

3. Needing You… (2000)

Sammi Cheng tires of your shtick

Okay, I’ll admit it — the last act conflict is completely ludicrous and the denoument lacks the more satisifyingly physical catharsis you’re hoping for, but somehow, someway, this movie works. People may love Johnnie To’s other films because they’re slick, stylish, and cerebral, but Needing You… is one of the few films of his that truly wears its heart on its sleeve. And I love it for that reason.

Before seeing this film, I didn’t really grasp the appeal of Sammi Cheng. Afterwards, however, I totally got it — boy did I ever! Coached on by an affable Andy Lau, Cheng’s seduction scene (pictured above) is just one of the many memorable moments that make this bubbly romantic comedy worthwhile. It’s no wonder, then, that the palpable onscreen chemistry between the film’s two good-looking co-stars would carry over to a number of future collaborations (okay, maybe not Yesterday Once More). Oh, and it’s also got the funniest A Moment of Romance parody ever — with the original film’s star and good sport, Andy Lau, no less. As they say, except no substitutes.

2. Shaolin Soccer (2001)

My interest in soccer begins and ends with this movie

This movie was reeeeeeeally close to being my top pick. But before I talk about how much I like Shaolin Soccer, I’m gonna let you in on a little secret. As I’ve discussed elsewhere, when I started buying and watching movies, I had to order VHS tapes through mail order catalogs. At that point, my interests were filmmakers (John Woo, Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam) and actors (Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Chow Yun-Fat). There were two kinds of films I never watched. The first kind were Category III films, a fact which probably set me apart from the majority of my fellow Hong Kong film geeks who were, meanwhile, wearing out their copies of Sex and Zen and Erotic Ghost Story 2 through multiple, presumably solo viewings. That revelation may not be too surprising, but the other “type” of film I avoided just might shock you — Stephen Chow mo lei tau comedies.

Blasphemy, you say! Well, before you revoke my LoveHKFilm critic license, let me explain. There are two very good reasons for this omission. First of all, his movies simply weren’t on my radar in the early going of my HK cinema obsession. The books I owned about HK films never talked about him — the focus was always on the filmmakers and actors I mentioned earlier. And two, when I did finally hear about Stephen Chow, I had the terrible misfortune of reading about him in a book called Asian Cult Cinema. In this book that filmmaker Oliver Stone mysteriously refers to as “The Bible” in the cover blurb, the author warned readers off of seeing Chow’s films and called the actor a number of names I won’t repeat here. I was new to HK cinema, and I didn’t realize at the time that a) the book was rife with factual errors  and b) that the author had, with some exceptions, exceedingly bad taste in movies. Because of my mistake, I almost missed out on the genius of Stephen Chow. And then something happened. That something was Shaolin Soccer.

I don’t remember how I first heard about it nor do I remember the circumstances in which I was able to view it. But what I do remember is being blown away by this movie when I laid eyes on it. On more than one occasion I’ve waxed poetic on this site about my first viewing of Once Upon a Time in China 2 on the big screen. Watching this movie on VCD on an old-fashioned computer screen was no less revelatory.

Within the first few minutes, I immediately thought to myself, This is Stephen Chow? He’s not a hack; he’s a genius! Now I know some folks lament the lack of Cantonese wordplay in comparison to Chow’s previous films, but I have to say that not one of those Chow classics (which I love, too) is as polished or as self-assured as Shaolin Soccer. Sure, it’s a simple, old-fashioned underdog story (I mean, the bad guys are called “The Evil Team;” you don’t get much simpler than that!), but simple isn’t bad — not in the least. With equal doses of kung fu, comedy, CGI wizardry, and just a touch of romance, Shaolin Soccer’s winning, can-do spirit is so infectious, I’ve been hard-pressed to find anyone (in person, anyway) who isn’t a fan. The finale is masterful thanks to the inclusion of a number of comical pop culture references, another great score by Raymond Wong, the funniest and perhaps most honorific Bruce Lee homage to date, and the drama, whimsy, and hilarious payoff of that last wonderful kick by superstar Stephen Chow. Really, how can anyone not love this movie? Siu lam gong fu ho yeah!

[Wanna step into the LoveHKFilm.com Delorean and relive the totally played out Miramax/Shaolin Soccer controversy? Click here for a blast from the past!]

Next time: I delay the #1 pick to give you those bad boys Ekin Cheng and Louis Koo wearing designer suits sans the requisite shirts, the man inexplicably known around here as DONNNNIIIEEE!, and Edison Freakin’ Chen. ‘Member him?

With the results of the LoveHKFilm.com reader’s poll slowly trickling out, I give you a few more of my personal top ten. Will they in any way reflect the choices of the readers? I have no idea. Let me know what you think!

7. Kung Fu Hustle (2004)

Stephen Chow is all out of bubblegum in Kung Fu Hustle

How great is this movie? Well, let me put it to you this way: Kung Fu Hustle is so great that comic genius-turned-filmmaker extraordinaire Stephen Chow can disappear for long stretches of the narrative, and I didn’t even miss him. Think about that for a second. The star of the film (and likely the singular reason why people bought tickets for the movie in the first place!) occasionally gives up screen time to lesser known actors in an A-budget picture. Sure,  familiar faces like Yuen Wah and Shaolin Soccer alums Chan Kwok-Kwan and Lam Chi-Hung round out the supporting cast, but a lot of the story hinges on the performances of a bunch of relative unknowns — the residents of Pigsty Alley. During my first viewing, I found myself asking, “Who are these guys?” And better still, “Why am I so riveted to what’s happening to them?”

I guess it doesn’t hurt that “the hidden tigers” of Pigsty Alley are introduced with a martial arts sequence that is a good sight better than a lot of fights that conclude a number of major kung fu movies. Taken as a whole, Kung Fu Hustle is like a Chuck Jones-directed Looney Tunes cartoon cross-bred with every wuxia/kung fu film you’ve ever seen and sprinkled with a heavy dose of anachronistic pop culture references that enhance, rather than detract from the material. The score by Raymond Wong, which mixes new and classic songs perfectly, strikes the appropriate epic tone and is perhaps the best Hong Kong soundtrack I’ve heard since the glory days of the early 90s. The music is absolutely essential to the movie, particularly during the climax.

And how about that finale? When Stephen Chow returns to the narrative, he should not be able to glide right back into the role of protagonist so effortlessly. But not only does he accomplish that feat, but he goes one better — the man practically owns the movie and the audience. Who else can do that? Answer: nobody.

What I love most about the film is how Stephen Chow references the wuxia and kung fu films of yesteryear not  as they really were, but as we remember them in our collective imagination.  Kung Fu Hustle is the movie you were imagining in your head as a kid after you saw a really fun kung fu movie, kicking the air and vanquishing evildoers with one strike of your unstoppable Buddha’s palm technique. Kung Fu Hustle not only captures the essence of that feeling, but translates it perfectly to the big screen.

Of course, a hero is only as good as the villain (see Donnie Yen’s Flashpoint as a prime example of a complete failure to understand this truism), and it’s helpful that Leung Siu-Leung’s “Beast” is both a worthy adversary and the ultimate badass. Stephen Chow is no slouch either. Martial arts-wise, he may not be Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, or Jet Li, but filmmaking-wise, he’s clearly their better. And it shows. “Wirework” and “CGI” are sometimes thought to be dirty words for hardcore action fans. But Chow and action director Yuen Woo Ping use those tools as enhancements, not cheats. The kinetic, visceral action on display provides all the necessary vicarious thrills, as the energy of that last extended fight is hard pressed to be matched by any fight sequence that came out in the “aughts.” To put it another way, the action in this movie > than any fight scene in any film with Donnie Yen as the lead. Yeah, I said it.

6. 2046 (2004)

Tony Leung Chiu-Wai gets all emo in 2046

Boy, how time can change a man’s opinion. I cannot emphasize how much I hated, hated, HATED 2046 when I first saw it. As a huge fan of In the Mood for Love, I was highly anticipating this companion piece/sequel when I first caught wind of it. Flash forward to when I finished watching it, and I was aghast. How could Wong Kar-Wai turn Chow Mo-Wan (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai) into such a sleazy douchebag? Why did he have to be so darn mean to my (former)  beloved Zhang Ziyi? Why is Maggie Cheung barely in the movie?

It’s hard to remember what my critical evaluation of it was at the time, but I reckon it was something like this: 2046 was beautiful to look at, but was not only a betrayal of a major character (see Clarice in the novel Hannibal), but felt more like an irritatingly episodic rehash of Wong Kar-Wai’s pet themes than anything new. I was, to put it mildly, very disappointed.

So what happened? Well, a lot of things actually. I calmed down for starters. Later, I randomly happened to speak to someone who had a very different take on the movie, one which I strongly disagreed with, and yet, I was somewhat intrigued by that person’s interpretation. And then something else happened — I had a summer in Hawaii that felt like a Wong Kar-Wai movie all its own. And so, with these new experiences,  I watched 2046 again — this time armed with the foreknowledge of what would happen in the story, but sans the baggage of what my hopes and expectations had been for the film. And guess what? I liked it.

Unlike Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, repeated viewings of 2046 substantially altered my opinion of the film. I saw Chow Mo-Wan differently this time, as a haunted, broken man who is only honest, although brutally so with the clingy character played by Zhang Ziyi. This time around, I found it to be a poignant, heartwrenching depiction of lost love, never to be regained. And so now I could appreciate the callbacks to Days of Being Wild and In the Mood for Love, as they felt more purposeful and considerably less gimmicky.

In many ways, 2046 feels like Wong Kar-Wai’s swansong, summation, or perhaps a “Dear John” letter of sorts to the look, feel, and thematic content of his previous films. Never mind that he made the self-derivative and hollow, My Blueberry Nights, sometime thereafter. 2046 is the latest, but hopefully not last masterpiece from Wong Kar-Wai, a film that repays its viewer with multiple viewings. I don’t think you can say the same about crappily ” artsy” romances like Ming Ming…or can you?

5. Red Cliff (1 & 2)

Tony Leung Chiu-Wai is an avid Dynasty Warriors LARP-er

Should this movie be listed so high? Should this movie even be on this list? Honestly, I’m really conflicted. With that said, let me use this film as a way to talk about how difficult, unscientific, and somewhat arbitrary any “Best of” selection process can be. Red Cliff (Parts I and Deux counted as one film) was as low as #10 on this list, but upon further consideration, it got bumped all the way up to #5.

Why? Well, I think there are three somewhat interrelated reasons: 1) Considering the size, scope, and complexity of the picture, the fact that it even works is an astounding achievement in itself, 2) It’s one of the few highly-anticipated Hong Kong films that actually lived up to the hype, and 3) it’s John Woo’s long-awaited return to form, after a string of some not-so-good films he made for Hollywood (except Face/Off — I like it).

Sure, the first film essentially serves as the longest prologue in recent cinema history, but what a prologue it is! You can read my half-serious/half-tongue-in-cheek thoughts on that first film here. And let’s not forget that Part II actually delivers the goods. I love the Zhao Wei stuff in the enemy camp, the strategizing by Tony Leung and Takeshi Kaneshiro’s character, the requisite Woo-style male bonding, and the sheer spectacle of the battle scenes. There have been a lot of historical epics in the “aughts” – Battle of Wits, The Empress and the Warriors, Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon, and even the very good Warlords — but none of them hold a candle to Red Cliff. Although some might think I should have left it off in favor of a cool Johnnie To crime thriller or (hell, I don’t know) Twins Effect 2, I think it’d be strange not to have a space reserved for Red Cliff on this list. After all, it’s probably the most impressive Hong Kong film of the last half of the decade. I mean, what would I replace it with, Kung Fu Cyborg: Metallic Attraction? Don’t friggin’ tempt me.

Next time: Chaste wuxia love, a needy couple, and the best HK sports movie ever made!

Since Kozo recently asked the readers of LoveHKFilm.com to send in a list of their favorite Hong Kong films of the last decade, it got me to thinking about what my top picks would be if I had to come up with a list of my own. That bit of brainstorming turned into – wouldn’t you know it? – my very own top ten list!  Originally, I planned to talk about twenty-five Hong Kong films that I really, really liked, but after hashing out all the flicks I could possibly mention, I soon realized that this would be too big a task to complete in so short a period of time. I mean, I should be spending my holiday celebrating Christmas and the New Year (not to mention passing my qualifying exams for the PhD), right?

So, I’ve whittled down my choices to cover what I think are the top ten Hong Kong films of the last decade. Be warned — when I say “Top Ten,” my definition lies somewhere between “best” and “favorite.” As with any list, my personal biases will become blatantly obvious, and I make no apologies for them.

Some of you may bristle when you see that this list is not filled to the brim with all of Johnnie To’s creative output between 2000 and 2009. I’ll try to address the reason for this potential ”oversight” if any of To’s films actually make it onto my list. Similarly, you might see a slight bias in favor of films that came out in the early part of the decade. The reason for this inclination is simple — I think they made better films back then (or at least more of them anyway). If that makes me sound like a gruff old timer, so be it.

In any event, the list is meant  as a) a fun little celebration of the last decade of Hong Kong cinema and b) the perfect jumping off point for you to discuss your own top picks in the comments section. So don’t take ‘em too seriously, enjoy the walk down memory lane, and, of course…

Happy Holidays!

10. Infernal Affairs (2002)

Andy Lau and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai square off in an iconic scene from Infernal Affairs

If Infernal Affairs 3 had been a better movie, I would’ve bent the rules and listed all three films here as a trilogy. Although the third film has grown on me (like a fungus!), it’s not nearly as good as the first two entries in ”The Legend” (as the series was billed in HK advertisements. I think they meant to say ”saga.”). I’m sure some people might have a beef with this choice because they think Infernal Affairs 2 or Colour of the Truth is a better film. While I acknowledge that both films are solid genre flicks, I find that I have little interest in revisiting either of them when perusing my own back catalog of Hong Kong movies. To put it bluntly, the first Infernal Affairs has something that those two films simply don’t possess – across-the-board star wattage.

Now, let’s be clear: having big stars won’t help a terrible film very much (if at all), but it sure can give a welcome boost to one that’s already quite good. And that’s what I love about Andrew Lau’s Infernal Affairs. Thanks to Tony Leung and Andy Lau, it has a swagger and bombast that is nothing less than electric to watch, even after multiple viewings. That quality seemed to quickly turn into unintentional self-parody in the last two films, as the filmmakers behind “The Legend” seemed to take the films way too seriously.  And really, how can I not list a film that a) spawned an Academy Award-winning American flick and b) gave Hong Kong cinema a much-needed blood transfusion (even if it only lasted for a little while)? Taking these and other facts into consideration, I believe that Infernal Affairs is nothing less than a landmark film in Hong Kong cinema history, one that rightly deserves a place on this and any other list of the best of the decade. Wow, that sure is some emphatic praise. Did I just blow my cover as a mole for Andrew Lau?

9. Hero (2002)

 Jet Li is “What’s-his-name?” in Hero

Whatever you think of Hero’s politics, you can’t deny that the film is gorgeous to behold. The award-winning combination of Christopher Doyle’s cinematography, Emi Wada’s costume design, and Huo Ting-Xiao & Yi Zhen-Zhou’s art direction make this Zhang Yimou film an unforgettable feast for the eyes. Add in Tan Dun’s score, Ching Siu-Tung’s elegant fight choreography, and the welcome presence of some of China/Hong Kong’s premiere actors (Jet Li, Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung, Chen Daoming, and former “It Girl” Zhang Ziyi), and you have a recipe for cinematic gold.

At its heart, the film is a stylish Rashomon-like wuxia that begs the question, “Do the ends justify the means?” While the main characters seem to come up with a particular answer for that question, I don’t think you have to agree with their decision to appreciate and enjoy the film. In fact, Hero’s potentially troubling political subtext, which fudges history and creates uncomfortable parallels with modern China (and maybe even the Bush administration, too, if you want to go there) makes what could have been another “arthouse” take on the wuxia genre into something far more intriguing. I mean, if you want a movie that’s wall-to-wall spectacle without any troubling subtext whatsoever, you can always watch James Cameron’s Avatar instead. Uh, waitaminute…

8. The Heavenly Kings (2006)

Conroy Chan, Andrew Lin, Terence Yin, and Daniel Wu channel the Village People

Actor/director Daniel Wu’s hilarious mockumentary would probably be the funniest Hong Kong film of the decade if Stephen Chow didn’t exist. I love how the movie — taking its cues from reality TV — blurs the line between what’s real and what’s fake in an effort to send-up the Hong Kong music industry. Wu occasionally interrupts the film’s “narrative” — about a terribly untalented boyband called Alive – with amusing and insightful interviews with several prominent HK singers/actors, including Jacky Cheung, Nicholas Tse, and Miriam Yeung. I could’ve watched a movie entirely composed of these, and their inclusion doesn’t distract, but actually helps the film considerably. Looking back, The Heavenly Kings turned out to be remarkably prescient about the state of pop music, as it might as well be an expose of the US music industry as well. Seriously, I’m not exaggerating when I say that the majority of today’s top-40 hitmakers rely on lip-syncing, fake publicity, and a curious invention called auto-tune to make it big in the biz. Think about it. My “I am T-Pain” iPhone app makes me sound like a pop star when I sing into it, and that’s a $2.99 device. Think of what they can do to a voice with top-of-the-line technology.

And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention LoveHKFilm.com award-winning actor, Andrew Lin, when discussing this brilliant little film. I’m totally sincere when I say that he emerges as the unsung hero of this movie. While his onscreen colleagues can occasionally come across as more obviously actorly or staged, I remember being struck by how unscripted Lin’s performance came off in comparison. In fact, he seemed like the only one in the group not in on the joke. However, if you read Kozo’s interview with Lin, you’ll learn just how much of an acting triumph his performance was, as some of the most unguarded, genuine moments in The Heavenly Kings aren’t as real as they seem. Acting! Genius! Andrew Lin!

 Next time: Kung fu rules, love hurts, and war is hell!

 

 ***The following is a piece I wrote to introduce Big Trouble in Little China at a screening at UC Santa Cruz. I’ve slightly re-edited it for LoveHKFilm.com Hope you enjoy it. ***

The film I’d like to talk about today is the very epitome of a cult classic. John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China may have flamed out at the box office in 1986, but it eventually rose like a phoenix from the ashes on home video, cable, and DVD, garnering a fervent cult following. Twenty-three years later, there are a number of theories as to why it didn’t click with audiences at the time. Maybe it was bad publicity, maybe no publicity, or, as I would like to think, maybe it was simply a few light years ahead of everything else out there.

Even so, I think, in some respects, the movie could be considered a bit old-fashioned – and not just because it boasts the kind of rapid-fire line delivery you’d see in such Howard Hawks films as Bringing up Baby and His Girl Friday. No, it’s the genre. Big Trouble’s resemblance to a Western is neither accidental nor merely symptomatic of Carpenter’s own filmmaking tastes. Before Buckeroo Banzai director W.D. Richter was brought in for rewrites, the original screenplay by Gary Goldman and David Weinstein set the events of the film in the Old West. The original plot centered on a cowboy who drifts into San Francisco’s Chinatown, gets his beloved horse stolen, and finds himself fighting for his life in a mystical Chinatown underworld.

I would propose that it’s Big Trouble’s very resemblance to a typical Western that perhaps gives some people the wrong impression about the film. After all, on the surface at least, Big Trouble in Little China seems to be yet another story of your typical white guy, real American hero. This outsider with insider’s knowledge, who just so happens to walk with a John Wayne swagger and the enunciation to match, wanders into town (in this case, an exoticized space coded as “foreign” and “dangerous”), wins over the locals, saves the day, and rides off into the sunset. And I guess that’s kind of what happens. But not really. That’s just the cover story or, at the very least, the kind of synopsis one might accept if they were only casually aware of this film or, if they had actually seen it, weren’t paying too much attention.

At its heart, Big Trouble in Little China is a proto-“Bromance” between two Californians, truck driver Jack Burton (Carpenter alum Kurt Russell) and his best, perhaps only real friend in the world, Wang Chi (Dennis Dun), who are – racial differences not withstanding – two reasonable men about to experience some very unreasonable things. In the process, however, expectations about just who’s supposed to be the leading man and who’s supposed to be the sidekick gets completely flipped…with hilarious results.

And perhaps it’s this very clever role reversal that makes the pre-release controversy surrounding the film seem a bit puzzling. According to Carpenter, the Asian American community was none too pleased with the project. During filming and after the finished film was released, Carpenter was accused of resurrecting old stereotypes. In Roger Ebert’s own review, he said the film comes “straight out of the era of Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu, with no apologies and all of the usual stereotypes.” It would take a long time to situate the dense history that Ebert’s referencing here, but what I’d like to suggest to you about this controversy is that it may just be a case of wrong place, wrong time for Carpenter and company.

You have to understand that in 1981, the producers of a film called Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen had tried to film in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Protesters, angry that Chan was once again played by a white actor – in this case, Peter Ustinov, forcibly ejected the production from Chinatown, and all of the Chinatown sequences you see in the finished film are shot on a studio lot. Fast-forward to 1985, and you have the emergence of another controversial film for the Chinese American community – Michael Cimino’s Year of the Dragon, starring Mickey Rourke in a modern-day update of another familiar Western plot: the new sheriff hell-bent on cleaning up the town, although in this case, the sheriff (Captain actually) is a bigot and the town in question is a thoroughly corrupt vision of New York City’s Chinatown (the film also stars Big Trouble’s Dennis Dun and Victor Wong, if you’re looking for an intertext).

Now, if those two controversies weren’t enough, you’d also need to remember that, historically speaking, Chinatown has often been depicted in American pop culture as some kind of Orientalized underworld, a place where up is down, black is white, and you don’t know what the hell is really going on – if you’ve seen Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, you have the crystallization of that entire imagined world in a single line of dialogue at the end. And you can’t totally say that this kind of Orientalizing doesn’t occur in Big Trouble in Little China. After all, Carpenter takes all these swirling associations surrounding Chinatown and pushes it to an over-the-top extreme, literalizing the idea of Chinatown as an underworld in ways that I’m sure ruffled a few feathers. I mean, you don’t get any more literal an underworld than one dripping in the “black blood of the earth.”

Instead of getting hung up on this very narrow reading of the film, what I would like to do instead is to propose a couple alternative lenses through which to read the Big Trouble in Little China. The first is the tradition from which Carpenter and his Chinese and Chinese American actors all say they drew upon for inspiration. Let me give you a brief example: the villain of the piece, David Lo Pan (James Hong), may provoke in some viewers a knee-jerk reaction of seeing him as nothing more than an offensive Fu Manchu-type character, since Sax Rohmer’s insidious Yellow Peril stereotype seems to be the only reference point for an Asian villain in popular American and European culture. But I fail to see how Lo Pan differs at all from the numerous power-mad wizards, fame-hungry swordsmen, evil Taoist priests, and dastardly imperial eunuchs who populate scores of novels, comic books, and movies in Chinese popular culture.

Carpenter himself stated that in Big Trouble in Little China he wanted to do an all-out kung fu ghost story, attributing his inspiration for the film to a number of Hong Kong martial arts movies he’d apparently loved for quite some time. Notably, Carpenter’s knowledge of Hong Kong cinema doesn’t stop at Bruce Lee, which would be common for many Americans during this pre-internet, pre-DVD, early VHS era. Instead of Bruce Lee, Carpenter drew upon the high-flying swordplay action of vintage Shaw Brothers wuxia flicks and their ilk. He’s cited as reference points a film called Swords of Fame, which I’m not sure exists under that English title, and even a more recent film (for his time, anyway), Tsui Hark’s 1983 martial arts epic, Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain.

Now, simply put, wuxia is a broad genre that involves the adventures of martial artists in China. For lack of a better term, it’s a Chinese Western. Or since it predates it, I guess you can say the Western is an American wuxia, take your pick. In these stories, sword-wielding heroes and villains populate the world of Jiang Hu (Gong Wu if you’re a Cantonese speaker), a chivalric world that seems to exist both literally as a physical space “out there” and conceptually in the minds of the characters as a kind of a code of conduct. These wuxia films, books, and comics (called manhua) often feature characters with supernaturally-enhanced powers, as they tend to shoot rays from their hands, fly, and do all sorts of things you’d never be able to learn how to do even after a lifetime of kung fu lessons. Although some critics may wish to take Carpenter to task for playing fast-and-loose with Chinese history and mythology (after all, Lo Pan’s lair is a crazy mishmash of Chinese, Thai, Indian, and vaguely “Oriental” cultural signifiers), let’s be real about this – it’s not as if Chinese writers, directors, and artists haven’t been doing this sort of thing for decades already.

And I guess it’s Big Trouble in Little China’s Hong Kong cinema connection that may be part of the reason I want to say that the film was ahead of its time. After the Bruce Lee craze died out in the 1970s, Hollywood didn’t seem to seriously catch up to Hong Kong cinema again until the turn of the twenty-first century, as films like The Matrix incorporated wire-work in their stunts, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon came to the attention of Western audiences, actors like Jet Li and Jackie Chan finally crossed over to Hollywood, and numerous fight coordinators like Yuen Woo Ping, Corey Yuen Kwai, and others were hired to liven up the stuntwork in everything from Charlie’s Angels to The Musketeer. So, with that fairly recent cross-cultural film exchange in mind, I guess you might say that Carpenter was way ahead of the curve in 1986.

The second lens through which you might want to view Big Trouble in Little China is as an Asian American film. Sure, its director may be a white guy, but the majority of its characters, especially the heroes, are Chinese Americans. Is Big Trouble in Little China the masculine response to Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior? Not intentionally, I’m sure. But in this story of a group of Chinese American men who prove that they’re “good enough” to vanquish an ancient evil, what’s most striking for me is what a genre film, rather than a so-called serious drama, allows these characters to be – they don’t suffer from any clichéd dual identity issues, they’re not worried about the model minority stereotype, and they’re certainly not bitter, navel-gazing whiners. These are men of action. I mean, you only have to listen to Wang’s non sequitor of a toast towards the end of the film to get full evidence of where his national allegiance lies. So, in that respect, you could say that Big Trouble in Little China is an Asian American coming-of-age story like no other. It’s a film that has it both ways. While the film may demythologize American masculinity through the figure of Jack Burton, it effectively remythologizes it through the actions of its Asian American characters. Through this coalition of cross-cultural male bonding, even someone as hopeless as Jack Burton can score a few heroic moments, too.

I really want to put it out there that this is a far richer film than you might expect, and there’s so much more to talk about –the conspicuous presence of Kim Cattrall’s character, Gracie Law, in Chinatown, Lo Pan’s sex life (or lack thereof), who and what Egg Shen might actually be, and a slew of other routes of interest. But to say anymore would spoil the experience, if I haven’t already.

So if you ever get a chance to sit down and watch the film,  I want you to somehow remember what I’ve said, but, at the same time, push it out of your mind for the next 99 minutes, and just sit back and enjoy this unique cinematic experience from John Carpenter. You’re about to find out, as Jack Burton does – that China is here, whatever the hell that means.